Gasoline & Matches
by CocaCola Gold
Summary: "So you're Valentine's daughter."  Jace smiled slightly, white teeth trickling into it.  "I can't believe you're a redhead."
1. Chapter 1

Gasoline and Matches

"Baby, I'm incarcerated and I don't want out;

Baby, we should get related, 'cause there ain't no doubt,

When your heart and my heart attaches-

You and me are gasoline and matches."

_Defiance ran thick through her blood, black as corruption and wrong as a lynching. Every finger he pressed against her torso set her body on fire; she had to bite into her lower lip just to keep from crying out loud. He teased her though. He smiled down at her as she squirmed, arms lifted above her head and body searing with sweat and heat. He laughed softly._

_"I__s this too much for you, baby?"_

_ Her green eyes burst open as she reached up to knot her fingers through his blond curls and yank his head down towards her's. Their lips met in a crashing of tongues and sweat and blood because he had, from the very first, tasted like blood. Maybe that's just who he was. She didn't like to think about who he was right now though; the very idea of who he was made her stomach twist. She buried her insecurities in another kiss. Never in her life, never in a thousand lives, did she think that anyone could make her feel like he made her feel, and the decision now was her's. Did this lust, for the other word for it she refused to even consider, justify breaking every rule and code that she was supposed to stand for? How had she come to this? She felt tainted now, like at any moment her body might crack under the weight of its own runes. How could he make her feel this way?_

_ He kissed a spot between her jawline and neck, a soft spot of skin he had found early on and seemed to claim as his own. "I__'ve had a lot of girls, you know."_

_"Not the most romantic thing to lead off with. She admitted as she forced her eyes to open and watch him speak even though his hands on her torso burned through her whole being._

_"Just a fact," he stroked her cheek and she gasped when his hands dipped down below the belt-line of her low-rise jeans. She was on fire. "A__re you listening to me? He checked in and, though her eyes had clamped shut and her lower lip was bleeding from being bitten so hard, she nodded. "G__ood. Because there is no one on Heaven or Earth that I'd rather-"_

_ And then the door slammed open and she screamed as he was dragged from the bed and everything in her entire world shattered like figurative glass._

Clary had always felt the need to prove herself. First of all, she was short. It might seem like something as simple as stature shouldn't have made a difference in the life of a would-be Shadowhunter, but when your father was well over six feet and menacing as hell, being Clary's miserable height was just depressing at times. Second of all, there was the previously mentioned matter of her father. He wasn't exactly the kind of man who bought you a teddy bear for you sixth birthday. In fact, for Clary's sixth birthday he had given her a dagger that looked like a paper opener. You know how most papers openers looked like daggers? Well, not in Valentine's world. And it wasn't as though Clary resented her father, just the opposite in fact. Perhaps if she had been a different type of person, she would have rebelled. But rebellion, she told herself, just didn't run in her blood. One different from her father there, she was disappointed to note.

Anyway. The need to prove herself most assuredly came from her father's pushing. He had a strange way about him, a way that demanded more and more from her and at the same time encouraged her in an almost soft way. There was never a night when Valentine didn't swear to Clary that if he had to pick any child in the world it would be her, and in every life after. He encouraged her to be the best she could be, yet somehow always seemed to think that it was more than she was giving _right then_. So she worked hard to live up to his standards that she, in the back of her mind and because she did consider herself just as smart as her father insisted she was, knew were impossibly high.

What she was about to do that evening, just after she had finished supper in her room, was a new level of proof though. It was a challenge that her father had laid before her and that she was determined to meet with the level-headed purity he claimed her capable of. She pulled her red hair up into a tight, high ponytail and adjusted her black tank top around her lean torso. The runes on her flesh smelt of burning rubber and she liked the mental image of her body steaming as she made her way out to the mansion's stables where the prisoner was being held.

Clary had never been off her father's estate. It didn't bother her; she didn't need or want any friends. Her father was her friend, and her lessons were her life. She felt his training sinking into her like runes on her mind and craved each new goal as though it was her life's desire. It _was_ her life's desire, to become the best Shadowhunter there was, to make her father proud. And this new challenge would test all of that.

Her father had said to be wary of the prisoner. He had been caught sneaking onto the premises by one of the dogs and Valentine had shackled him up in the stables; it wasn't like they had a cell anywhere near their house. Her father had said this prisoner would stop at nothing to corrupt her. He would lie, he would attack, he would say or do anything to get her to release him. Her test was more than not listening to his mad ravings, however. Her test was to successfully extract information from him. This prisoner knew the location of something that Clary's father wanted very, very badly. Valentine wanted the Mortal Cup, an object of no real value to anyone but rather of sentimental value to Valentine. See, as her father had explained to her, the Mortal Cup was actually a cup that had belonged to her mother before she had died at the hands of the Clave. They held the cup as a terrible sign of their power, and Valentine just wanted it back. It was Clary's job to get the information from this prisoner about where the Cup was.

Clary stood outside the stall where he was being held. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes to calm herself, a funny little idiosyncrasy that her father enjoyed. He said it reminded him of her mother. Clary opened her eyes and pushed the stall door to the side to see the prisoner. She didn't gasp out loud but the thought was there.

What she had been expecting was a dirty, mangy looking man with perhaps a beard and definitely the need for a bath pronto. What she got was the exact opposite. The boy shackled to the back wall of the stables was beautiful. He looked everything of a fallen angel. His skin was bronzed and scraped and scarred with rune tears. His golden hair fell carelessly into his downcast eyes which raised to meet her's one her entrance. They were a bronze color, somewhere between gold and auburn, and shown like a lion's. His features were angular and his naked torso was muscled and sleek with a thin layer of sweat coating it. His arms were resting in his lap were manacled by chains to the wall but his wrists were torn up around them and rubbed raw, as though he had been jerking the metal against his flesh for hours.

When he saw her, he smiled lazily like it was her whom he had been expecting this whole time. Clary looked away from his face and shut the stall door behind her.

"Do you come in blonde? I have to say I prefer blondes, though I'm not terribly picking." His voice was expectedly smooth and low as a bass strum. He didn't stand on her arrival, so Clary stood over him, a few feet away.

"What's your name?" She asked him firmly but not unkindly. She didn't know how she wanted to play this yet. She knew her father's method would involve beating the answers from him, but her father had always admired her own set ways of accomplishing things, and Clary was better at coaxing answers then beating them. Besides, something about his posture which was determinedly slumped, like he was putting on an air of laziness, told her that perhaps this boy was not one to torture into a confession.

"Dolly Parton." He looked up at her. "Well, before the sex-change anyway. And feel free to keep standing there; I like a woman on top, you know."

Clary smiled down at him. "You think you're pretty charming, don't you? I was warned that you'd use any means at your disposal to get me to sat you free."

"Oh, we're just laying our cards right out on the table, right like that?" The prisoner feigned surprise. "All right then, my name's Jace. I hate champagne but love pi coladas and am rather neutral on getting caught in the rain."

Clary smirked, arms cross before her. "Get up." She said.

"No." Jace said experimentally, like he was testing to see what she would do. Clary took a knife from her back pocket and, in an instant, had it pressed up against his throat.

"I'm supposed to keep you alive until you tell me what I need to know," she whispered into his ear, "But I can always call your death an accident. I'm a very effective liar."

"Are you now?" Jace murmured, humoring her, but remained very still. "Maybe I would reconsider, if you removed that blade from my throat."

Clary did so. Jace stood then, faster than she had expected, he was grabbing her arm, trying to wrench the weapon from it. She grunted, kicking him hard in the stomach, and ripped her arm back. But Jace was stronger, despite Clary's speed, and had her pressed back against the wall in seconds, her knife still clutched in her fist and her teeth barred. She knew he hadn't won. She new the second he moved a fraction to adjust his stance, and thus removed the pressure of one of his hands from one of her wrists, she would have him on the ground, knife at his throat. He must have known this too, because he didn't move but kept her back pressed against the wall, face close to his.

"So you're Valentine's daughter." Jace smiled slightly, white teeth trickling into it. "I can't believe you're a redhead."

"Why?" Clary breathed, using the full strength of her forearms against his strong hands that clamped around her wrists like organic manacles. "Can't handle a natural girl?"

Jace chuckled, then looked right into her eyes. She tried to avert her's but found them locked. "I never thought I'd want to do this to a redhead." He breathed an honest laugh then leaned in dangerously close. Clary realized what he was going to do but was powerless against it when he kissed her lips, his mouth salty and strung through with the coppery taste of blood. His tongue teased at her lower lip and sent tingles up her spine of an unwanted feeling, of something dangerous, something foreign and something she had not and would never encounter in a lesson. Something that could not be taught but by experience. And when he let up just a fraction on her wrists she almost forgot the slam him to the ground. ...But not quite.

_R&R and let me know if I should continue! xoxo_


	2. Chapter 2

Gasoline & Matches

"Swiss on the Beat, Chris move your feet,

And we can transform a good girl into a freak."

_Clary had the permission to leave her room for nearly a day then, but not the inclination. Finally her father entered to find a strange sight. Red lay scattered all over the floor, but it wasn't blood. It was hair. He looked to his daughter and found her staring out the window. She had chopped off the beautiful length of her red hair to leave about an inch of sporadically clustered clumps about her scalp._

_"Clary..." Valentine spoke and his daughter turned. Her face, with her new haircut, looked sharper and leaner than before, with her cheekbones more pronounced. She had an edge that hadn't been there before. "D__on't think this little stunt will help you. You defied everything you are, or at least everything I thought you were."_

_"It's not what you think, father." She stood to face him, chin level with his though he towered over her. "I__didn't cut it in defiance. I cut it because it reminded me of him." A look of uncertainty crossed Valentine's bold features. "O__ne of the first things he ever said to me was about my hair." She clarified, eyes brimming with some strong as vodka and green as Faerie. "I__didn't want it anymore."_

_ Valentine surveyed his daughter before him. She stood, awaiting his judgement like a good soldier. But Valentine wanting to believe his daughter and actually believing her were two different things. Because as well as he knew that Clary was one of the most promising young Shadowhunter he had ever seen, he also knew that she was one of the smartest. And Clary, Valentine also knew, was a _great_ liar._

xoxo

It had been four days since the moment Prisoner Jace had decided to call up the unexpected and try to shove Clary off her mental balance. But Clary, as she did in most situations, adapted. During dinner before her time when Jace, her father brought up her progress for the first time.

"I haven't checked on the prisoner yet, you know." Valentine's eyes slid over his daughter's thin, athletic frame. "How is it going?"

Clary didn't look up as she scraped peas off her fork. "It's all right. I'm going to try a new method tonight. I have a hunch."

Valentine smiled a little. "So you haven't had much progress yet then."

Clary shrugged. "He's... difficult."

Jace had been proving to be quite a bit more than just difficult. When she tried to ask him serious questions he rebuffed them with jokes. When she threatened him he called her bluffs. When she got down and straight-up cut or hit him, he just spit blood at her feet and asked for more. He had this fearless sense about him, like a man with nothing to lose and little to gain, and that made him impenetrable. It was like his golden eyes were the hard edge of his soul, and she couldn't feel her way passed them. She was anxious now, as well. She was anxious first because he had out-powered her the first time, then caught her off-guard with the kiss, and she wasn't looking for a repeat performance. But she was also anxious for reasons she didn't wholly like to admit. She was anxious about what she had felt when he had kissed her, when he had touched her, that fire that had rose in her body and made her feel light and at the same time tied to the earth. It had made her feel truly, vulnerably and completely human. It was the exact opposite of what her father wanted for her, her floating about emotions and apathetically dealing out punishment. That contrast alone jump-started her breathing.

She buried her face in her water glass as she felt her father's eyes on her. "Difficult?" Valentine repeated slowly. He was judging the situation. "Do you want me to take-"

"No!" Clary cried suddenly. The thought of her father taking the one task he had asked her to preform from her made her body nearly reject her meal. She felt sick to her stomach. Valentine smiled.

"All right." He agreed with forged reluctance. "I'll give you a little longer."

Clary's face set in determination as her father watched, pleased with the progress. She would try with all her heart to break him, and Valentine loved his daughter's sense of heart. But Jace Wayland would not be a parlor trick to destroy. Valentine had picked him for a reason; he was headstrong, and since the death of his mother he was carelessly violent and death-strung. If Clary could break him... Then Clary could break anyone.

xoxo

Clary walked to the stables with moths gnawing the walls of her stomach. She knew what she was going to do, just not if it would work. She cursed her self-doubt. Of _course_ it would work. She was Clary Morganstern. She could do any task she set her mind to, and breaking Jace was that task. She marched into the stables and paused, like always, before the door. There she did more than just shut her eyes and take a breath. She grabbed the tie constricting her long hair in its high ponytail and pulled it out, letting her hair fall down her shoulders in auburn waves. She pulled low white tank top she was wearing and made sure there was a thin line of tanned skin showing between her low-rise jeans and the shirt she had shortened specifically for this occasion. She then shut her eyes, counted to three in her head, took a breath and opened the stall door.

Jace had opened his mouth to say something, most likely rude and probably a lie, but he faltered when he saw her. His eyes skimmed her body up and down and Clary took this opportunity to begin on her much desired upper ground.

"Speechless for once?" She hung her belt on a bridle hook by the door and ran a hand over her head and through her long hair. "It becomes you."

"Did you break into your mom's closet again, JonBenét?" He had recovered quickly, bored smile settling itself comfortably over his features. "Except that shirt looks too small, not too big."

"I'm going out after this," Clary took her knife from her back pocket firmly in hand, then walked over to the wall where Jace's shackles were held. His wrists hadn't healed at all and she suspected the reason was that every time she left him he started yanking on them afresh. Using the devices bolted to the back wall, she began tightening the chains that led to his manacles.

"This seems highly unnecessary," Jace pointed out as he was forced from a sitting position to a kneeling one. She worked on the other until he was forced onto his feet, chains taunt to the wall so he could only move a few inches from it. "It's not like I was going anywhere. Not with you dressed like Laura Croft anyways."

"Just making sure you're comfortable," Clary smiled and patted his cheek condescendingly, "Before we get down to business."

"What's the business tonight?" Jace cried in mock-excitement. "Electric nipple pinchers?" His voice then dropped to an almost edged tone then, a threatening, patronizing one. "Or more amateur hour of the Inquisition? Didn't anyone ever even teach you the proper methods of torture?" He scoffed.

Clary had turned away though, dusting hay off her tight jeans. She had felt the way he had kissed her, and she knew that no one made that many teasing, chauvinistic remarks without a hint of attraction towards the object of them. If this was all just a game for him, then she wanted to play too.

She faced him, smile on her lips. "Don't worry, _Jace_." She didn't really believe that was his name, but had decided on day two to humor him about it. "You'll get your torture." She moved forward, close to his body until she stood only inches from his chest and could feel the body heat radiating from him. A look of confusion quickly covered with apathy shocked his features.

"Well, this is a lousy start." He mumbled but lost his words as she placed a hand against his chest, tracing the outline of a rune scar burn particularly deep against his upper torso.

"Where did you get this?" She asked curiously, running her short nail along its edge.

"What?" He shook his head as though he hadn't heard her right. "You want a background check now? Try my JV record down at the family courthouse." He suggested.

Clary only smiled, her fingers trailing up to catching on his collarbone. She ran the pads of them along it gently, just at her chin level. "What about this one?" She touched his shoulder, close to his neck where a deep scar ran jagged. "Is this from a demon's bite?"

"I..." Jace's golden eyes held honest confusion as he watched her become engaged in touching his skin. "What are you doing?"

Suddenly Clary's fingers were on his neck, skimming up his jaw and tilting his face away from her to examine a scar against his left cheek. "This is a nasty one." She marveled. "Didn't get the healing rune on fast enough?"

Jace jerked away from her touch and said nothing. Clary smirked, hands not just touching now but _caressing_ his shoulders and upper torso, around his upper arms and smoothing over scars like her palms might heal what was left of them.

"What's the matter, Jace?" She murmured, nose inches from his skin, "speechless again?"

Jace suddenly rattled against the chains savagely, more harshly than she had seen before. Under other forms of torture, like bleeding and punching, Jace remained almost willingly in his manacles, as though determined to show her that he didn't care. Now was a different story. His skin had begun to sweat and her fingers slipped down his body against the moisture. She bit her lower lip and glanced up at him briefly before pressing a kiss against his collarbone. Her fingers skimmed down towards his belt line, running just beneath it but not further, then tracing up his spin behind him as she kissed his collar again. His body shuddered and his head hit the wall behind him, hard. When Clary licked gently a spot at the base of his throat, his breath hitched. She then dared to look up at his face again.

There wasn't much to see. His eyes were closed and his head rested back against the wall. His features were contorted into a frown but he still managed to look more of an angel than any human should have. When he realize she had stopped he looked down at her, eyes darkened and pupils dilated.

"Want to answer some questions now?" She asked, before pressing her lips to his chest and teasing the skin with her teeth. Her fingers danced up his biceps, towards his hair. Jace swallowed but shook his head. "No? All right." She laced her fingers through blonde curls and brought herself up on tiptoes to kiss his neck slowly, sucking against his skin.

Jace gasped out loud. Clary nipped at his jawline and his lips were suddenly against her's. She pulled feet backwards before his tongue could even graze her lips. She shook her head slowly at him, finger out and wagging before her face. "Nuh-huh, Jace." She smiled as a drop os sweat slid down from his hairline. "Not until I get some answers."

She moved cautiously forward again, making sure to keep her face a distance from his, and skimmed her fingers below his pants line once again, running her palms over his jutted hipbones and kneeling before his bare stomach to kiss the flesh. She licked against his lower abdomen and nuzzled it with her nose as her fingers played with the button of his pants. She heard Jace's head hit against the back of the wall again, this time harder. She heard his breath catch as she moved away from his stomach and back up his torso, teeth nibbling on his collarbone again as her fingers lightly scratched at his back.

"All right!" He gasped, panting slightly and eyes dark with desire. "What do you want?"

Clary smiled, proud of herself for the first time in his presence. "Where is the Moral Cup?"

Jace laughed at her question but his breath came up short again when Clary's lips were against his neck.

xoxo

Clary was just loosening the chains when her father stepped into the stall. He watched Jace fall to his knees as though all his energy had been drained, his torso and face drenched his sweat and his face still contorted with discomfort and another emotion Valentine couldn't place. There was still defiance in his set jaw, but every other emotion in the young man seemed to have been milked out of him. He let his eyes drop from Valentine's figure as the man looked with wonder at his daughter.

"Did he talk?" Valentine asked.

"Not yet," Clary replied perkily. "But I think we're making strides, don't you, Jace?" She asked as she passed by him, crossing the stall towards her father's impressed figure.

"Frustratingly small strides, Clary," Jace lifted his eyes to her's. "Frustratingly small strides."

_Thanks for all the reviews! Much appreciated! xoxo_


	3. Chapter 3

Gasoline & Matches

"Just how deep do you believe?

Will you bite the hand that feeds?

Will you chew until it bleeds?

Can you get up off your knees?

Are you brave enough to see?

Do you want to change it?"

_She knew Jace had been rescued by a member of the Clave. Her father had even told her as much. There really wasn't a reason to hide facts from her anymore. She pulled on her black shirt and it felt strange not to have to pull hair out from beneath the back collar. She shoved the stele into its holder and the short knife into its._

_ She knew there was a war coming like Death on a pale horse, whether she was ready for it or not. She had decided it would be best if she were ready. She knew her father didn't fully trust her anymore; she could hardly blame him. She knew the Clave would never trust her at all. She knew she was something ugly, like an AIDs orphan, something that no one really wanted but that had to be dealt with. She also knew that if she was an orphan she was the fucking James Bond of orphans because she could kick any other orphan's ass into next week._

_ What she didn't know, even if her father or the Clave wouldn't believe her (which they wouldn't), was who's side she was headed into battle on. She knew the facts well. She also knew there was no black and there was no white and Jace was a particularly stunning color of gold. And everyone wanted gold. She knew that if her father was any color in this world, he was stained with red. He didn't deny it and she respected the honest conviction of red. She walked to her window of the outpost where her father had stationed her, far from the real battle._

_ Golden was the color of victory, but red was courage and bravery and righteousness against all odds. She wasn't yet sure which her color was, but by the end of this night the entire world would know._

xoxo

Her fingers trembled and her charcoal slipped. She cursed out loud, then kicked the lamp she was trying to recreate hard, smashing its ceramic bowl. She flopped back on her bed, groping her fingers, blackened with charcoal, through her hair. She groaned and shoved the sketchbook off her stomach as she gritted her teeth and stared up at the ceiling of her room.

It had been a week since Jace had laid siege to her brain. At first she just pushed his face away when she left the stall, ignoring the sound of his voice that echoed nights into her ears. But it was becoming oppressive. After two days of her special brand of questioning, she, on her father's suggestion, had brought out the hot irons. Jace's screams had haunted her like a ghost since then. She had barely gotten sleep and now she couldn't even relax in her usual method. Her drawings frustrated her and her charcoal smudged when she thought of Jace. Her hands trembled. She ran her hands over her face.

There was a knock on her door and Clary sat up on her bed. "Come in," she called, knowing it could only be one person. Her father entered and, on seeing his daughter's charcoal-smeared face, suppressed a smile.

"Going to be a ninja for Halloween this year?" He asked from the doorway.

Clary's face formed a frown of confusion before she realized what he meant and rubbed her face with her sleeve. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Just drawing."

"Hm." Valentine entered the room fully then, dressed in riding clothes. "May I see?"

"Um..." Clary bit her lower lip but knew better than to resist her father's desires. "It's not very good."

Valentine walked over to the bed to lift up the sketchbook and look at the half-smeared depiction. He frowned. "You're right, it's not." He cast it down again. "Why?" He asked, tone hardened.

Clary sighed, scratching the back of her head then pulling up gobs of red hair into a big, loose bun atop her head. "I think I just need more sleep."

"Hm." Valentine said, and she could tell he was figuring her out. "Is it the prisoner?"

Clary shrugged. "It's going fine. I'll break him. It's just taking longer than I had thought it would."

Valentine nodded slowly. "It's taking longer than I thought it would too."

Clary winced at the words but spoke up again quickly. "But don't worry; I'm really close. I can feel it. He's almost talking." She was a convincing liar, but her father could usually tell.

"Good," Valentine surveyed his daughter then turned to leave. "Because I'm giving you one more day. If you can't get him talking by then..." he trailed off as he left Clary alone in her room with her broken lamp. "And get that cleaned up!" He called from down the hall. Clary grunted in response.

One thing was for sure. Clary wasn't going to let any man haunt her thoughts. She wasn't _ever_ going to lose sleep over someone else. She had decided that one night when she was six years old and crying because her father had yelled at her for falling from her horse trying to jump the stream after him. Because it wasn't her father that had to harden Clary's resolve, she had discovered, it was herself. And though she loved and trusted her father, he wasn't going to ruin her self-esteem. Clary wasn't going to give anyone the keys to that, much less prisoner Jace. If he had somehow wormed his way into her brain, then she would just have to cut him out again.

xoxo

Jace's heart lurched when he heard the sound of footsteps through the stables. They were light and quick and he knew they were Clary's. His mission needed only a few more hours with her; he could tell she tired. She might have been Valentine's daughter, but torture was not the game for her, no matter what Valentine wanted. Torture, Jace thought bitterly, shouldn't be a game for anyone.

When she entered the stall Jace wondered if today might be the day. She looked tired, hair up in a bun with strands dangling along the outline of her heart-shaped face. There were dark bags under her pretty green eyes and her hairline had begun to break out with acne. She wore a long-sleeved gray shirt instead of a tight-fitting tank top and simple, loose-fitting jeans. She was tired and she was yielding. And honestly, Jace didn't know how much more of her _torture_ he could take. She might have been an amateur and clearly hated doing it, but it wasn't like she was bad at it either.

He drew in a breath and his face spread into a cocky grin. "Back for more, baby? I know it's hard to stay away."

Clary didn't say anything, she just shut the stall door behind her. Her left hand held a towel and her right hand was moving behind her as she approached him while Jace stood in his chains.

"Nice outfit. Very comfy looking; are we going to watch some _Roseanne_ reruns later? I mean, talk about tort-" but Jace gasped out the last syllable, his whole body jerking forward as Clary put her entire body into the stabbing motion that hit his lower abdomen. He sagged against her, chin on her shoulder and blood spurting from his lips. "Um." He gasped out. "Ouch."

Clary helped into to the ground then knelt before him as Jace felt himself bleeding out. "Sorry about this," Clary sighed, wiping the blade on the towel.

It's not fatal," Jace observed through a choke as he rested back against the wall, teeth gritted and jaw muscles strained.

"No," Clary admitted. "But if you bleed out it will be."

"That would take..." Jace figure it. "About ten minutes."

"Yeah," Clary nodded as she slipped the knife into her back pocket again. "So are you going to talk to me now? My father's only giving me this last day with you."

"If you can't break me, no one can. Is that it?" Jace smiled and his teeth were outlined in red. Clary shrugged. Jace laughed. "You're a regular Delilah."

"Where is the Mortal Cup?" She countered.

Jace did his best to shrug. It was surprisingly difficult in his current position. "I lost it. That or my Grandma threw it out during spring cleaning. She goes on rampages, a regular harpy."

Clary sighed, eyes cast to the ceiling. "Why are you doing this?" She gestured to the wound in his side. "You'll die."

"No, I won't." Jace stared her in the eyes. "Because you won't let that happen."

"Really." Clary rubbed her temple, too exhausted from lack-of-sleep and trying to deal with Jace to even protest his arrogance at this point. "And why's that? Because I'm a weak-minded girl?"

"Hardly." At that, Clary looked to him again. There was an iron to his speech, something dangerous in its truthfulness. "Because I'm going to tell you the truth about your father. And you're going to believe me."

"Will I?" Clary refused to acknowledge that interest had been peaked. "Why would I trust you?"

"Because you're a smart girl." Jace hypothesized. "And you know that there's something not right about him." His golden eyes were like two challenges gleaming before her, and when he spoke his smooth voice soothed the screams in her head.

"Well, you've started out correct." Clary sat down fully before him. "I am smart." Jace's face glinted into a smile which turned briefly into a grimace of pain. "Best hurry though," Clary mocked concern. "Your nine lives are slipping down your pants."

"Your father, Valentine Morganstern," Jace recognized the start in Clary's eyes that he knew her father's full name, "is a traitor. He betrayed the Clave and tried to start a war against the Downworlders. He wants the Mortal Cup to change humans into Shadowhunters and begin another war." Jace waited for a reaction.

Clary smiled. "Hm." She nodded in understanding. "So _you're_ saying that I should, what? Join up with the good side, release you and gallop off into the sunset to wage war against my father?"

Jace's body had begun to shiver from loss of blood and his face had paled. "You know I'm right, Clary. He _hates_ Downworlders; even someone as sheltered as you could see that. And why else would he keep you here, separated from everyone?"

"What?" Clary looked shocked, "You mean unless he was going to start an Uprising akin to his namesake?" She grinned. "Sure, Jace, whatever you say. Besides," she mused, glancing up at the ceiling. "I like the view from here better. If there _were_ to be a war, I'm sure that Father would make me a general. On your side, I'd probably be a war criminal."

"Clary..." Jace's voice had declined to not much over a whisper. "Please believe me. You know there's reason you've never seen another human besides your father and a few of his closest friends. You know there's a reason he raised you to be a killer. You know there's reason he sends his sixteen-year-old daughter into a stable with a prisoner to _beat and torture_ him for the location of a cup." Jace's words were harsh but his limbs had grown weak. He leaned his head back against the wall now not because he wanted to, but because he hadn't much strength left and he was saving what he had. "That doesn't sound like love to me."

Clary drew in a breath. Jace's logic was more sound than she would have liked. She typically knew lies when she heard them, and though Jace's story was ridiculous, his reasonings into her life sounded just plausible enough to be true. But this was her last time with him, and she wasn't so easily convinced of anything. She just shook her head at Jace. "Regardless of whether the little fantasy story you tell has any grain of truth to it, I regret to inform you that your time is almost up. I see reasonable doubt and that's enough for me." She readied herself to rise and leave him.

"Wait!" Jace gasped out, whole body trembling. "Do you... think about me?"

"_What_?" Clary snapped, eyes hardened like jade.

Jace took in a shallow breath. "I... Just want to know. This isn't part of my 'fantasy story.' It's just..." Jace's eyes had slipped half-shut. "I think about you. I just wanted to know, before you leave."

Clary just shook her head, incredulous at the question and refusing to even really consider it. "So what if I did?" She demanded to know. "It hardly has baring on anything now."

But she watched as Jace, despite his pallor and pained expression, forced himself off the wall. He faltered but remained upright. He leaned forward, reaching a hand out to cup her cheek. Their eyes met evenly, gold-on-green. His lips were cracked and laced with blood, but his face was beautiful and Clary didn't draw away.

"Because, Clary, if you think about me, whether it's in pity, regret, guilt or something else..." he murmured so she could barely hear him at all. "Then there's hope that you're not like your father." And he reached forward to press his lips to her's.

Clary wasn't surprised his time, nor did she pull away. His hand was warm on her cheek and his lips were rough but he wet them with his tongue. They moved gently against her's, and she let her's part just slightly and felt his breath against her tongue. A shock went through her, like electricity, like fire and magic and the loud burst of a ballon, but at that moment Jace collapsed backwards against the wall with a thud. His eyelids fluttered shut and his skin had taken on a new color of pale.

Clary wiped her mouth on her sleeve and pulled her stele from her other back pocket, brandishing Jace's chest with a healing rune and waiting for it to take effect. She almost held her breath because it was taking too long and what if he really did die and what did he mean by her not being like her father and was that a good thing? It frightened her to realize she thought that it was.

But Jace's golden eyes flickered open and a smile spread across his features even before it should have been able to. "Told you you wouldn't let me die." He whispered.

xoxo

_Thanks for reading, and thanks for the reviews! To Lena3, thanks for the suggestion of drawing, and to everyone else that had suggestions or comments, they were great. Constructive is awesome! :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_ Soooooo I felt that I should introduce some old-new characters in this chapter... Enjoy, or hate me because it's kind of a different setting._

Gasoline & Matches

"When you kiss the base of my spine

Make my body into your shrine.

You give me this feeling deep inside,

One that I can no longer disguise.

While other snakes just shed their skins,

Fucked holes pointing out my sins;

Even though I realize that history's not on my side-

Even though I realize the pioneer skin still curls up in my eyes."

Alec had showed up in the most inopportune moment available, but that was Alec. He yanked the door open, his eyes blanked and his lips parted just before his face screwed up into a look of contempt and disgust, like he had just seen his mother and his father copulating on a bed of nails.

"Gross, dude. C'mon, you knew I was coming up." Alec turned away with the apparent hope that Jace and Clary would make themselves decent.

Clary rolled her eyes as she snapped her bra on. Her neck felt naked without her hair, but she liked it better short anyway. Or at least she told herself that every morning.

Jace grinned as he pulled on his pants, resting his bare feet on the floor beside the bed. "Chill out. Haven't you ever seen a beautiful man before?"

"Thanks," Clary grunted as she stood, buttoning up her shirt. "You can look now, Alec. I promise your retinas won't scar."

"That's what _you_ say." But Alec reluctantly turned back to face them both. Clary adjusted her shirt as Jace pulled his on. Alec's eyes lingered only briefly on Jace's muscled chest before flicking to Clary's. She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest.

"What do you want, Alec? Besides to interrupt my first alone-time with the man I haven't seen since he was ripped from my bed." She had sat through seemingly endless Clave meetings with Jace, his fingers laced through her's, and had faced countless interrogations by Inquisitors about her past in the last week since she had turned traitor on her father, but her room had been a glorified cell with restricted hour access. Only after they had de-bugged, detoxed and fully sterilized her was she allowed into the Institute where Jace lived with Alec, his sister Isabelle and a few other young teachers.

"Must here to interrupt a moment of bliss. That's his specialty. Behind egg-juggling, of course." Jace made it a joke but Clary, entering a world of people, with varying personalities and intentions, wasn't so sure it should have been taken so lightly. She had used what she knew of books, human nature and her own intuition to realize relatively quickly the not-so-hidden desires Alec harbored towards his brother-in-arms and fellow-teacher. And it did not please her, made her feel jealous, an emotion she was not entirely accustomed to. Unfortunately, it happened to be better than the other emotions she had been feeling lately, such as remorse, subtle regret and blinding, undeniable, aching guilt.

The troops were gathering. The lines had been drawn. She had chosen a side, the side she believed was right, and stood beside the man she was in love with against the man who had raised her. It had taken her only six short weeks to make this decision, from the day she had first met Jace to the day she had landed here at the Institute, but that was her nature, wasn't it? To decide something and convince herself she was right. Valentine had not raised a meek, obedient child; he had raised a fighter, just like himself. And if he couldn't see that, well, then let his knife find her throat on the battlefield. She would fight back with every ounce of strength left in her, every muscle, every fiber of her being. Because she was _more_ than her birthright. Oh, she was in love. And that makes anyone just a little more reckless.

"Um." Alec did not find Jace as amusing as Jace found himself. "Inquisitor Luther wants everyone gathered in an hour at St. John's. He's got a plan of action to address, then we're getting assignments."

"Official." Clary rolled her eyes again.

"Everyone knows what _you_ want." Alec snapped back. "We all know you think we need to focus on figuring out his intentions before 'charging blindly into battle.'" He sneered the last bit. "But guess what, Clary? We have no friggin clue what his intentions are. You know? Please honor us; fill us in."

Clary's hands had made their way to her hips. She glared up at Alec. He cut a smooth figure where ever he went. Black hair, black eyes, high cheekbones but glaring insecurities about it all. He was rude at times; he was snappy. Despite his height and bulk over her, Clary thought she could take him the way a terrier always thinks it can take a bull dog. It's not common sense that drives the rough-and tumble; it's pride and arrogance and a courage that can't be put down.

"All right, _professor_, you just tell me about the man I've known for my entire life. And how many times have you met him? Oh yeah, _none_."

"Yeah, _your whole life_. And what did you do to him again? Betrayed him. Why should we put any faith into you after that?" Alex's dark eyes bore into her, green on black, and neither one was backing down because it wasn't the upcoming battle they were arguing about. It was something much prettier, cockier and more dangerous to their mental health than that.

"Guys," Jace stood from the bed with a half-smile on his angel face. They both turned to him. "It's pointless, right? We're going to have to go listen to the drones anyway." He cocked his head, looking pensive. "So you think 'droning' is a profession? Do they get paid for that? Or does it just sort of happen on accident?"

"Alec! Jace!" Isabelle swung into the open doorframe, holding herself dramatically against its white siding to catch her breath. "Thank the angel you're here." She panted.

"Hi". Clary raised her hand, non-too-pleased with Isabelle's, pretty, vain Isabelle's, treatment of her, either. "Me too."

"Right." Isabelle's eyes slide over Clary and to the two boys. "Valentine's men attacked St. John's. All three Inquisitor's are dead."

"Are you serious?" Panic struck a chord in Alec's voice.

"f course she's serious." Jace sat back down on the bed. "Her voice is all high-pitched and panicky. Girls are always serious when their voices are all high-pitched and panicky."

Alec looked to Jace, mildly incredulous. "Why have you sat back down?"

"Well, they're dead, right? Now we don't have to go to the meeting."

"What's _wrong_ with you?" Alec shook his head and demanded. Clary didn't interrupt. She was wondering around the same thing. Isabelle waited, breath coming under control.

Jace shrugged. "There's no reason to look for Valentine."

"Why not?" Alec sounded like he wanted to say more, but Jace interrupted him.

"Because he's coming to us."

"_What_? Alec sounded like he was getting pretty sick of Jace's cryptic answers.

"Why would he come to _you_?" Clary added in, refusing to believe she was actually supporting Alec in the matter at hand.

"Because," Jace's golden eyes settled on her lithe figure, "We have the trump card. The Ace of Spades, the lucky Buddha. We have you, Clary, and Valentine wants you more than life, more than death."

Clary swallowed, uncertainly for once creeping into her voice. "Yeah, right. I know him better than you."

"I know _you_, Clary." Jace's golden eyes fixed on her, unsettling her, sending, despite herself, echoes of tingles throughout her frame. "And I know what losing you is like. It's like withdrawal; it's like cold turkey. No way Valentine can survive that."

"How would you know?" Clary's voice, even to herself, felt pathetically weak. She hated it almost as much as she hated talking about herself.

"Because," Jace almost smiled almost sadly, "I've tried it before."

_Clary refused to believe that she had fallen in love with a man so damn quickly. But when the letter came by personal falcon that Jace would meet her by the far gates, her heart had leapt. She hadn't seen him in days, there had been days since his explanation of 'true events' had been uttered. There had been days since she had brought him back to her room, to her bed, to feel him in a proper setting. Days since her father had figured her out, had come into her room with his men and ripped Jace away. Days since she had heard of his escape and days that she had waited for any news at all._

_ The letter made her heart swell and her eyes tear. She had pulled on a leather jacket and slipped from her ground-floor window that night, evading the guards Valentine had recently employed with relative ease. Her trainer, after all, had been the best in the business. She didn't have to wait for Jace to show; he was already there, leaning, tall and slim, against a tree, ready to coil up and strike if a guard came his way. He approached her in the darkness._

_"You going to turn me in?" He reached her and a look of surprise flickered over his features. "Y__ou cut your hair."_

_"Still a redhead." She said as he reached out to rub some short ends between his fingers._

_"True," he agreed. "S__till a fire-crotch, too?"_

_ She swatted at his arm and he grinned. "Y__ou going to come away with him then? Like a princess from a fairytale?"_

_"Maybe," Clary said, knowing that as she did, she had already made her decision. "D__epends."_

_"On what?" He humored her, eyes glowing in the moonlight._

_"On if this princess gets to drive a car." Something she had never done._

_"Does the princess know stick-shift?" Jace asked._

_"I'm a quick study."_

_"I __know." Jace cupped her cheek in his large hand and pulled her close. He pressed his lips to her's, but even before the electricity surged through her, before the tingling sensation touched her heart, before his heat set her skin on fire, she knew. She knew he was more important to her than anyone, ever, and even, she shuddered to think, more important to her than herself._

_r&r, love you guys! Sorry it took so long to update!_


	5. Chapter 5

_Okay, so you may hate this chapter cause it's short and not exactly in the same direction, but I feel like it's okay._

Gasoline & Matches

"I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full

I need some meaning I can memorize

The kind I have always seems to slip my mind

But you but you

You write such pretty words

But life's no story book

Love's an excuse to get hurt

And to hurt

Do you like to hurt?"

_ "Jace," she whispered, eyes wide. "Wait."_

_ "What?" He asked. His body, atop her's, his bare hips pressed against her bare hips, their sweat mixing like two forest fires, their hair glowing in the light from the fireplace, his irises flickering in the dark._

_ "I've..." Clary turned her head to the side, so her profile showed. Short red hair; sharp jawline. "I've never done this before."_

_ Jace frowned, then rolled off her, lying beside her on his back and taking her hand in his. He stared at the ceiling. "You wait until the night before the final battle to tell me that?"_

_ "I just..." Clary raised herself on one elbow to look at him. "I don't want to be hurt."_

_ Jace raised himself up. He pressed a kiss to her lips, slow, lingering, long. "Baby," he murmured. "I want to be with you forever. I want to love you forever."_

"Here," Alec grunted, handing her a new stele without looking up. "Since you lost yours."

"Thanks," Clary said, rolling her eyes. "You're so courteous." She stood in the center of the weapon's room beside Alec as he gace her half an arsenal for fighting demons and whatever other unholy creature Valentine threw at them. Holy water, crosses, stakes, something that looked like an iron boomerang used for taking the heads off faeries... Clary took them all without protest.

"Here," Alec handed her another steel stake. Jace was off with Isabelle to talk to Isabelle and Alec's parents and the other Shadowhunters about the attack. The showdown with Valentine was going to be epic; it was going to be a Waterloo to remember.

"Here," said Alec, handing her a pin-sized tool made of brass. Since Jace was gone her mind was swimming and nothing was going clearly. The weapons were foreign and Alec wasn't going to teach her how to use them. None of the Shadowhunters, besides Jace, trusted her, and now that the Inquisitors were all dead there was no chance of them accepting her at all. Everyone hated her; she was facing enemy fire from both sides, was betraying the man she loved and had no one to talk to about it.

"Alec!" Clary shouted, fists in balls. Alec turned blue eyes to look on her, teeth clenched, face steeled.

"What?" He whispered back, blade in hand.

Clary shook her head, eyes narrowed. "What's your problem? I understand the other Shadowhunters don't trust me, but you? Aren't you supposed to be Jace's best friend?" She accused. "If he tells you I'm trustworthy, don't you think you should take his word?"

Alec sneered, lips coiling up, making his handsome face look ugly. "First, _Clary_," he said her name like a disease, an infection, "don't you think outfitting you for a gigantic battle in two days is _more_ than enough? I'm trusting you enough to stand in a room full of weapons with you."

Clary pressed her lips tight together and clasped her hands behind her back.

"Second," he continued, fingering a stele, eyes on the blade, "I'm not fooled by your size or your little innocence act. I'm not fooled by your impersonation of ignorance. I'm not _attracted_ to you, Clary. Is that the first time that's happened to you?" Alec shook his head, advancing towards her as Clary backed towards the wall. He continued, "I'm not buying when you say that you've been all alone up there with daddy for all those years, and I'm not buying your love-act with Jace. What I am thinking is that your precious _daddy_ gave you plenty of play-time with plenty of other hostages over the years." Clary had backed into the wall. Alec stood, tall and imposing, over her, his face lowered to just over her's, his lips parted, his eyes cold, black hair hanging in his face. "So, in short, you're not fooling me." One hand on either side of her shoulders, braced, face inches from her own, breathing his breath. "It's true, Jace might be in love with you. In fact, he _is_ in love with you. But let's not mince words." Alec shook his head, breathing into her lips, "He _never_ said that I should trust you. And don't you think that if Jace found you trustworthy, he would have told me that?"

Alec backed away, shifting his weight from one hip to another. Clary remained against the wall, glaring green-eyed at him, stele in hand, one still behind her back.

"Jace is in love with you, no doubt." Said Alec, turning his back on her and walking towards the far side of the weapons' chamber. "But don't think for a second that you've fooled him into trusting you." He turned back to her, glancing, almost laughing, "hell, you may have fooled yourself into thinking you're harmless. But you're not. You're Valentine's tool. And that man doesn't let rogue soldiers go, especially not his own daughter. And if Jace gets hurt, or dies sometime in this whole shit-show..." Alec face away from her, his voice lowered and almost cracking. "It's not because he didn't know what you are." He shook his head. "It's because loved you and wanted to save you. But what Jace doesn't get is that sometimes, even angels can't be saved." Alec turned, blue eyes shimmering. "Sometimes, you have to let people go and made their own painful, wrong, suicidal decisions. I hope he learns that before it's too late."

Alec opened the door to the chamber and let himself out of the chamber. Clary walked from the wall, bracing her hands on the table in the center of the room. She noticed the knife in her left hand, long and sharp and not one of the weapons that Alec had given her. Her eyes widened, then settled. Her face lifted towards the open door, then dropped. Nothing was right right now, and her body set with chills and shakes. She gritted her teeth. She shivered and moaned. "Jace..." she whispered as the motion-sensing lights flickered out. "Dad..."

_"I'll never betray the man I love." Clary whispered back, his touch tingling on her lips, her skin burning, cold blade behind her back pressing against the soft sheets._

_ Jace smiled, tipping her to her back so he could lift himself back up on her. He steadied himself over her body, skin-on-skin. "I know, baby." He pressed himself in her. She bit her lower lip but it didn't hurt, not like a blood-and-pain hurt. Not like a stab-wound hurt. Not like a betrayal hurt. Not like..._

_ And the man she loved._

_ Jace took her lips again, urgently, eyes wide. "Clary, let me teach you real love... Please, Clary." He whispered. "Please. You don't know..."_

_ Their eyes locked. Her hand tensed. In the last moment he could have prevented her from moving, in the last second he could have defended his naked back, he leaned down and kissed her again, gently, softly, slowly. "Please, Clary... Please."_

_Sorry it took forever to update guys, but if you're still out there r&r! xoxo_


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